by Ramona Finn
I worked my way around the table, looking at each piece of the puzzle. When I glanced up, I saw that Kupier had turned on the screens on the walls. And there was more of the same there. Not in his handwriting, though. These were more formalized plans. Routes for the Ray to take. The number of crew he’d have to have on board. And finally, what kind of power source would be required for me.
As an active Datapoint.
“Jesus, Kupier.” I turned in a slow circle, trying to take in the sheer scope of all this planning. There I was, looking at what looked like a complete plan for attacking Earth. Well, not Earth, exactly, but the Authority. Somewhere, beneath Earth’s cloudy, volatile sky, was the Authority’s Database. And right here, on my arm, was the technology that could dismantle it. Kupier’s dream was to arrange a little meet-and-greet for me and the Database. He believed it was the only way to take the legs out from under the culling system. If we destroyed the Database, any sort of large-scale culling of any kind would become impossible. At least for a while, we’d be safe from the mass genocide that I now knew Haven was planning.
“It’s ready, Glade. It’s planned.”
I turned to him. “When did you do this?”
“I worked on all that after we rescued you. On the Ray.” He nodded toward all the handwritten notes. “After I knew that we had you back for sure. The rest has been in the works for a while.”
He was five feet away from me, separated only by the large, paper-covered table in the middle of the room.
I spoke carefully. “Alright, show me the plan.”
It was a testament to how much Kupier trusted me and my fidelity to the Ferrymen that he didn’t even hesitate. Little by little, he took me through his plan for getting past the moon’s security system that surrounded Earth. For entering Earth’s atmosphere. For how to gain access to the building that he believed housed the Database. He even had a plan for what to do with the bomb that Haven had designed to wipe out Charon. I had to admit, that part was cool.
The rest, though… There was a little bit too much by-the-seat-of-our-pants for the Datapoint within me. Although, I had to admit, there was probably no way to make it more foolproof. There were simply too many unknowns. And I knew what he’d say to trying to nail down those variables, many as they were. We’d just have to be willing to alter the plan on the fly. To improvise. We needed to jump in and go for it. If we waited for everything to fit perfectly into place, we’d never do it.
I flicked through one screen that showed read-outs of the Ray, with blueprints and schematics that Kupier had had drawn up for changes to the ship to make it usable on this mission.
“Kup?” I had to ask. “When are you imagining doing all this?”
His pause was enough to confirm my worst suspicion.
“I’d go tomorrow if you were ready.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned.
“What?”
“Kupier, we’re not ready. This plan isn’t ready. This is like jumping off a cliff with a parachute in your pocket and hoping you’ll be able to hold on tight enough to it to not die.”
“I disagree. This thing has been as carefully planned as possible.”
“How can you say that!? There’s no exit strategy!”
He strode over to a set of papers we’d already gone over and held them up, his shoulder brusquely brushing against mine. “Of course there is! I told you. After you do your Datapoint witchcraft on the Database, you’re going to take this group here and get to the—”
“Kupier, I meant that there’s no exit strategy for you.”
He went still beside me, like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar. “I’ve been through tighter jams. I’ll make it.”
“Maybe, if you’re lucky, but Kupier, you’re saying that you’d implement this plan tomorrow? This plan where you’re most likely going to get exploded?”
“Glade, if that’s what happens, that’s what happens.”
His slicing blue eyes were down and hidden until he dragged them up to meet my gaze. I stumbled back at what I saw there. Honesty, intensity… and a strange, sad acceptance.
“What?!”
Betrayal whipped across me like high wind across the nose of a ship. I was high speed and off-kilter, the sting of grit making tears rise in my eyes.
“How can you say that? How can you feel that way?” I whispered it, my voice unrecognizable to even my own ears.
He was holding perfectly still. There was no bounce in his leg, no marble dancing in his hand, no leaning on the table next to us, no dancing grin on his face. And that’s how I knew that he’d already made some sort of decision about all this.
“Glade,” he said gently, “the plan is perfect except for this one small thing, an escape route for me. I’m not going to stall any longer. There are people’s lives in the balance here. And from what you tell me about Sullia, it sounds like the lives of the entire solar system. I… I’m not going to balance my life against theirs. We have no idea when the Culling is going to happen. Every minute that we perseverate here on Charon is another minute closer to something that could destroy us all. We need to get the show on the road.”
He threw his arms out to the side, finally, before he leaned one elbow on the table and looked up at me in that way of his.
I shook my head, glaring at him. “No. I won’t do it if it means you’re collateral damage.”
He stared at me hard after I spoke, and there was something in his eyes that was all at once both disappointed and thrilled.
“There’s a really good chance that I’ll most likely be able to get out anyway.”
“Kup—” I cut myself off as my eyes registered what I was looking at on the screen beside his head. It was a blueprint of the Ray’s main engine system. Alterations that he’d had done to make the Ray able to land after getting through Earth’s atmosphere. “What did you do?”
I brushed past him and stared at the screen. My fingers flew over it and I zoomed in on a few different parts before I turned around. I was sure that I had my Datapoint death face on right now. I could practically feel the rage lasering out of my eyes.
There was high color on his cheeks, but he held my gaze.
“That was an issue that was fixed immediately after we landed back here on Charon.”
“Landed?” I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to use that word. “Kupier, we almost didn’t land. We almost crashed right into Charon’s barren surface. Thanks to me, we barely made it! Your dumbass, Earth-ready alterations to your own ship almost got you and me and your entire crew smeared across the surface of your colony! Oh my God.”
I threw my hands up and paced away from him.
“Glade, that was an accident. The engineer I’d been working with didn’t take into account the autopilot system, but it’s fixed now.”
“What other accidents are there waiting for us in this haphazard plan, though? Kupier, not accounting for the autopiloting system isn’t an accident – it’s a blind spot. It’s stupidity. It’s because you’re rushing this! And it could have killed us all. Your little brother included.”
He winced, but there was a stubborn set to his shoulders I’d never seen before. “But nothing happened,” he insisted. “We’re all here. The Ray is here. You were there to fix it, Glade.”
“Just like I’ll be there to fix any other problems that might just magically pop up along the way?”
“I didn’t say that—”
“It’s too much pressure on me, Kup. I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not magic. I’m not even a mechanic! I’m a computer hacker who got selected and trained to be a killer. That’s all. I get that my tech makes me integral to taking down the Database. That makes sense to me. But I can’t be the special ingredient to every aspect of this plan. Just because I’m here, just because I came back from the Station and am willing to fight by your side, that doesn’t mean I’m somehow going to be able to spring you and the Ray from Earth when there is absolutely no plan in place to do so.”
/> “I’m not assuming you’ll be able to. And I’m not assuming that you’ll be able to fix all the loopholes in this plan.” We were standing closer now, almost chest to chest, but I’d never felt further from Kupier. “The engine rebuild was really unfortunate. And it was an extremely costly mistake. But, Glade, I learned from it. I went back through everything, searching for mistakes just like that. I don’t take what happened on the Ray lightly. You know how much human life means to me. I wouldn’t ever put my crew in danger like that again. There are no more mistakes of that magnitude in our plan. There just aren’t. Glade, I swear it. Please, don’t let that make you think this isn’t a good plan. It is. It’s a great plan that has the potential to save every living soul in our solar system.”
“It’s only a good plan because it’s the only one we have.”
“Maybe so,” he said after a moment, and he suddenly looked so impossibly tired. His hands clamped onto my shoulders and squeezed. “But we only have weeks, or maybe even days, before Haven does something that will change the course of human history. So, okay, maybe this plan is like throwing a rock at a tank. But we’re standing here. And all we have is a rock. Are you genuinely gonna tell me that you don’t want to throw the rock?”
The startling blue of his eyes filled up my vision and I realized it was because my eyes swam with hot tears.
“I’m not going to agree to this, Kupier. Not until this plan is safe for you.”
That stubborn thing in his expression broke in two. Something sweet and soft hatched in its place. “You surprise me, Glade. I was so sure that that Datapoint brain of yours would see the logic behind moving quickly.”
I stepped forward and hugged him. It was one of the first times that I’d made the move to touch him first, too. Leaning into him before he leaned into me. His warm chest pressed into my ear and his arms came around my shoulders like the friendliest, safest shelter of all time. I felt, for a moment, like there was no world outside of this hug. It was just me and him.
“We’re doing it, Glade. I know you think it’s too fast, but we don’t have any other choice. I swear, I’ll keep working on my escape plan. But we have to do this. We have to.”
I furrowed my brow. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He threw up his hands and landed them back on my shoulders. “Glade. Yes. We’re doing this if I have to handcuff you to the Ray. It’s our only option.”
“Then, by definition, it’s not an option.”
“We’re doing it.”
“Have fun without me.”
I turned and started striding toward the door of the annexed room. Kupier was suddenly in front of me, though, his arms crossed over his chest. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re the worst?”
I gave him my driest, most neutral expression possible. “Actually, I’m the best. Which is why you need me so badly and why you won’t be able to implement this suicide mission without me.”
He dragged one hand over his stubbled head, and then, as predictable as the sunrise, a smile started to crack his face in two. Of course, I knew him well enough to see the worry that that smile didn’t erase. He wasn’t dropping this. He wasn’t taking my answer. “Give me three days to convince you, okay? If I can’t convince you, we’ll go back to the drawing board.” He paused. “But you actually have to give me a shot to convince you, okay?”
I considered him. “Fine. Three days. And then we change this crazy plan around and do it my way.”
“What’s your way? Send me in in a one-man ship and skip the theatrics with the Ray?”
“A one-man ship? Talk about a suicide mission. There’s not a chance in hell I’d authorize that.”
“Now you know how I feel.” He scowled at me. “Three days,” he repeated.
I shook his outstretched hand, black eyes clashing with blue. “Three days.”
Dahn Enceladus’ mind was at rest. For the first time in a very long time. He’d used to rest his mind when he’d been younger, finding some level of calm on the Station by solving puzzles that Glade would leave for him.
But that felt like decades ago. He didn’t think it was normal for a person his age to feel so ungodly old. He felt as ancient as the stars that he looked out on. He didn’t normally care for space travel. He infinitely preferred to stay on the Station. Tonight, though, this first night among the stars, he couldn’t help but notice just how three-dimensional the universe looked, spread out before him like a river of silk. Every star was its own world, its own floating jewel in a universe of possibilities.
What if there were other worlds out there? Other civilizations with other rules of law and other ways to live?
The thought calmed him even further, so much so that sleep started to flirt with him a little as he lay on his cot and watched the stars out the windshield of the one-man ship he was currently using to fly past Mars. Well, technically it was a skip. It resembled, in almost all ways, a Ferryman ship. But it was also equipped with Authority blackhole-jumping technology. This craft that he was currently dozing in had the ability to outrace a Ferryman ship and jump the solar system. Still, it would take him a few days to make it all the way to his destination. But he figured he had a few hours to spare. Which was why he was floating past Mars, the asteroid belt well behind him and the Station obscured by the red planet.
Tonight, Dahn was not a Datapoint. He wasn’t Haven’s minion. He wasn’t his mother’s abandoned son. He wasn’t Glade Io’s toy. He was just a man looking at the stars in a dead quiet spacecraft.
Tonight, even his ambitions were quiet. He couldn’t remember the last time his dream of being a member of the Authority hadn’t been at the fringes of his every thought. His one-man ship slowly spun out, the red planet disappearing from the edge of his windshield until all he could see was the great black everything. The sky went on and on for so far and so forever that he wasn’t even sure he could call it the sky.
Dimly, Dahn understood that this was a synthetic calm. He was calm because there was literally nothing else to be. If he were to freak out right now, it would mean nothing. He would still be in a small cage, barreling across the solar system. All he could do was remain calm.
In the end, this would all be worth it. Perhaps what he was doing right this very moment could be considered defection. But he’d left a detailed plan with Haven. An itinerary. If he’d actually been betraying the Authority, he probably wouldn’t have left such detailed instructions on where they could find him.
No, Dahn was just doing what Haven couldn’t bring himself to do.
Not that he was actually doing this for Haven. No. Dahn was doing this for the good of the entire solar system. If he didn’t do this, there would be a catastrophe. He knew that he was taking this decision out of the hands of his mentor. That, in a way, he was cutting the legs out from under Haven. Dahn only hoped that Haven would understand. He only hoped that Haven would see what he’d done for him. For the Authority. For the future of all human civilization.
He clicked into autopilot and settled back into his seat. A few hours of sleep would do him some good before he navigated the first blackhole jump. That would put him outside of Jupiter. From there, it would only be a day or so until he came to Saturn. And then beyond. He knew that the Ferrymen had some sort of energy field around Charon. It wasn’t possible to skip into an artificial blackhole anywhere around Pluto. He’d have to make the last part of the trip completely by the power of his own piloting skills. Dahn was tired just thinking about it. He closed his eyes.
For now, he’d sleep. And when he woke up, he’d be that much closer to Glade Io. But more importantly, he’d be that much closer to making the solar system a safe place for its citizens.
Chapter Seven
Kalis Rome, one of the longest standing members of the Authority, sat quietly in the garden behind her home. She tipped her face toward the delicious heat of the sun and her white hair glinted like the scales of a fish rising up to the surface of a lake. I
t was summer – Summer! – and what a delight. The seasons were still such a full-body treat.
Since humans had evacuated Earth hundreds of years before, seasons had become something of a legend. Kalis Rome and her family had been secretly moved to the newly inhabitable Earthen city, Jericho, about a decade and a half ago, and she still wasn’t used to the miracle of summer on Earth. She liked this green the best, she decided. The grounded, deep, stubborn green of the leaves in late summer. Spring was lovely, too. But the green of spring was a bit undecided, flirty even. Summer’s green gave her the impression that there was no other season that existed. This green was here to stay. Though, she knew that, in a month or two, these green leaves would give up the fight and simply explode into yellows and reds. And although that made her sad, it was also terribly gorgeous.
She sat flat on the ground, her elegant legs stretched out before her and her palms settled on the grass behind her. The other five members of the Authority who lived on Earth – for Haven was the only one of the seven who chose to live on the Station – all had much finer homes and gardens than Kalis Rome. They had gazebos and man-made ponds with fat orange fish floating lazily under lily pads. They had stone walkways and four-story townhouses with jewel-toned carpets and windows in every room. She didn’t want any of that.
Kalis Rome had opted for a simpler life. She had a simple, single-story bungalow with a nice mountain view from her sitting room and shade in her backyard. There was a flower garden that lined one half of her yard, which her daughter tended to each week, and a tree with a swing for her grandchildren. And that was all she needed.
